The Government of Israel will require $800,000,000 in private and government loans for large-scale housing and other needs of the tens of thousands of immigrants now pouring into that country, Jacob S. Potofsky, president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, reported today following his return from a seven-week trip to the Middle East and Europe.

The Amalgamated president said that both private investors and government agencies would find Israel “a land of hope and opportunity,” and added that loans would be fully protected and guaranteed. Mr. Potofsky predicted that American labor, both the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the American Federation of Labor, will participate “to the fullest extent of their ability.”

“Israel is fast demonstrating that it is becoming the citadel of democracy in the Middle East. It behooves the United States Government to take an ever greater interest in the developments in that country, because it will pay incalculable dividends, he declared. The rate of immigrant absorption into Israel, he said, would be equivalent to the admission of 35,000,000 newcomers to the United States.